"WAP" is released

Why it matters

The actual structural craft on "WAP" is the part less discussed. The Frank Ski sample is a chopped "whores in this house" vocal stab that repeats every eight bars. Cardi and Megan trade four-bar phrases, with Cardi opening and Megan handling the second verse. The phrases are dense with internal rhyme and front-loaded image-and-action wordplay. Both verses are technically demanding rap. The song is the rare pop-summer #1 that is also a feat of rap-writing craft. Cardi's verse, in particular, has the kind of breath-control-and-rhythm precision that her detractors had spent the years since "Bodak Yellow" claiming she did not have. Megan's verse is the more vivid imagery-driven of the two. The Cardi-Megan pairing was, by mid-2020, the dominant women's rap pairing in commercial pop. Their joint catalog (just this song, plus a handful of remixes and joint appearances) was the model the rest of the women's-rap commercial wave of the 2020s built on top of. You can argue the song's lyric is gratuitous. You can also note that male rappers had been writing the same content from the other direction for forty years. Both arguments are real.